On March 23rd, 2013, twenty-four scientific study participants were injected with a dead strain of Escherichia coli, a bacteria that normally induces violent sickness for days on end.
IMAGE SOURCE: ”MRSA, Ingestion by Neutrophil” by National Institutes of Health (NIH) – National Institutes of Health (NIH). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
This time, however, none of the twelve people who were trained in the Wim Hof Method experienced any ailment whatsoever.
They had learned a technique from 20-time World Record holder Wim Hof, the first person to show that humans can consciously control their immune system. The other twelve, the untrained control group, were left to shiver and suffer.
The creator of the Wim Hof Method is known by many as a human outlier, capable of things we mere mortals can only dream of. He is the world record holder of ice endurance by standing in a container full of ice for 1 hour 52 minutes and 42 seconds. He ran a full marathon above the polar circle at a temperature of −20 °C (−4 °F) on his bare feet. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and attempted Mount Everest just wearing shorts. And not only can his body withstand cold, he is also capable of doing amazing feats in the heat. Last year he ran a full marathon (42.195 kilometres (26.219 mi)) on the highest desert plains in the world, the Namib Desert, without any water nor any food.
It was a follow up of a first study on Wim which showed his body was capable of remarkable features like suppressing his immune reaction, massive adrenaline release and a 300% increase in metabolism. Scientists wanted to know if he was just some superhuman outlier or if his technique really worked.
In this study, now published in the prominent scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy for Sciences, they studied his method, a combined practice consisting of third-eye meditation, cyclic hyperventilation followed by breath retention and cold exposure.
Learn the basics of the method here.
The research conclusions were baffling. It suggests that everyone, with sufficient training, can modulate their immune response.
Hitherto, both the autonomic nervous system and innate immune system were regarded as systems that cannot be voluntarily influenced. The present study demonstrates that, through practicing techniques learned in a short-term training program, the sympathetic nervous system and immune system can indeed be voluntarily influenced.
-Proceedings of the National Academy for Sciences
In this ground-breaking study, he has shown he is, in fact, not an anomalous outlier, but a very well-trained man. His technique can be taught to everyone. (this is what Wim claims, the researchers are themselves clearly indicate that we can’t predict the same results with people with diseases. However, first-person reports of people with diseases state that it, indeed, helps them too.) Practice makes all the difference.
Healthy volunteers practicing the learned techniques exhibited profound increases in the release of epinephrine (adrenaline), which in turn led to increased production of anti-inflammatory mediators and subsequent dampening of the proinflammatory cytokine response elicited by intravenous administration of bacterial endotoxin.
-Proceedings of the National Academy for Sciences
The breathing technique makes huge fluctuations in the acidity degree, causing a chemical release of adrenaline (epinephrine), more than people who bungee-jump for the first time. These stress-hormones repress the normal immune response. (thinking of scary things without this technique, won’t get you this response.)
This study could have important implications for the treatment of a variety of conditions associated with excessive or persistent inflammation, especially autoimmune diseases in which therapies that antagonize proinflammatory cytokines have shown great benefit.
-Proceedings of the National Academy for Sciences
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pyo2OAKW4Y[/youtube]
Those conditions are:
- Acne vulgaris
- Asthma
- Autoimmune diseases
- Celiac disease
- Chronic prostatitis
- Glomerulonephritis
- Hypersensitivities
- Inflammatory bowel diseases
- Pelvic inflammatory disease
- Reperfusion injury
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Sarcoidosis
- Transplant rejection
- Vasculitis
- Interstitial cystitis
In 2008 Wim said he felt like a circus act, but dearly wanted to become a scientist and turn his body into a laboratory. With these amazing results he finally fulfilled his long time dream.
“Orthodox neurobiologists and orthodox immunologists have been sceptical.” Guiseppe Matarese, an immunologist at the University of Salerno in Italy says, “they think the study of the interactions between the nervous and immune systems is a “field in the shadows,” Yet, “This study is a nice way to show that link,” he says. -Nature
The Method
If you want to learn all of the above there is now the option to do a unique 10 week course (variety of special exercises that progressively get more challenging.) 4 years ago, all they only had workshops!
What does the method do?
- Boost immune system
- Increase energy levels
- Withstand the cold like Wim Hof
- Influence your immune response
- Strengthen your nervous system
- Better focus and concentration
- Better meditation
- Faster workout recovery
- Natural mood booster (release of endorphins)
What do you get if you take the full course?
- Conscious control over your autonomic nervous system
- Workbook
- Group environment training setting, aimed at the beginner.
- Personal access to Wim’s knowledge (he responds to your questions personally)
- 14 day refund if you don’t like it
Each day you will practice between 20 and 30 minutes breathing techniques, have cold shower therapy and meditation plus yoga.